


Cursed

by kuonji



Category: due South
Genre: Angst, Character Study, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-13
Updated: 2011-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-20 09:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Ray Kowalski is an earthquake, a hurricane, a tempest that drags Fraser down to his trembling knees.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cursed

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/39697.html>

 

Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has slept with eight men over his lifetime.

He knows this would probably come as a tremendous surprise to most of his acquaintances. It is possible, he realizes, that the fact that he has had sexual relations with anyone at all may come as a surprise to some.

It is a secret that Fraser guards carefully -- scrupulously so. He is all too aware of the vast negative repercussions that may arise from being branded as 'deviant'. He has spent his life being called freak, for being an outsider, for striving for perfection, for being zealous in the pursuit of justice. He has no wish for this to be listed as one of his sins.

Which is why his eight men is equivalent to eight nights. To eight anonymous hotel rooms. To eight noms de guerre. To eight memories never to be spoken of aloud to anyone.

***

Stanley Raymond Kowalski is a force of nature.

It is not simply his physical beauty that captures Fraser, although it is that as well.

It is the way his lips part slightly, revealing dangerous teeth and sometimes a playful tongue, before curving slowly with unconscious invitation. It is the way he runs his agile, callused fingers through his wild hair and tucks his chin to look up at Fraser through his gold-tinged lashes. It is the way he winks and juts his jaw and tilts his head and speaks with his whole body. It is the way he stalks, and weaves, and dances when he moves. It is the way he runs. The way he lies. The way he breathes.

He entangles Fraser in a net he could not escape even as he saw it falling. He wraps Fraser in his doom with a careless snap of his fingers.

Ray Kowalski is a headlong rush, a reckless dive.

Ray Kowalski is an earthquake, a hurricane, a tempest that drags Fraser down to his trembling knees.

Ray Kowalski is the ninth -- the third by third -- man whom Fraser shares his body with.

It is only afterward that Fraser realizes, horrified, that he had been the very first man to touch Ray. His had been the first male mouth to pleasure him, the first male hands to arouse and hold him, the first phallus to open him.

It had been a virgin who chanted his name -- Fraser. Fraser. _Fraser_. -- in a spell, an enchantment, an incantation.

An unbreakable curse.

***

"Fraser. We have to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about, Ray. I've made my decision." Fraser places a checkmark in the correct place on the form in his hands, signs it, and places it into the outbox. It's past hours and the Consulate is quiet. He takes the next form from the inbox to peruse.

"Look, I know I screwed up, all right? I shouldn't've started it. We're partners. I _get_ that. I wasn't thinking. It'll never happen again, I promise."

"You are correct. Once I transfer to Atlanta, it is likely though unfortunate that we two will never meet again."

" _Fraser_. Fraser, Fraser, you can't _do_ this. Shit, okay, forget about me. What about Vecchio, huh? If you leave, he might lose his cover. Don't you care about that?"

Taking a steady breath, Fraser applies the correct stamp to the paperwork in his hands and reaches for the next. He must slow down, he realizes. There is only a small pile remaining for him to attend to. "Ray Vecchio is my dear friend, and I care very much about his safety. However, you are his cover, not I. My existence here should make no difference to your credibility. Besides," and he allows himself the briefest of wry smiles, "numerous people have assured me that no one can tell one Mountie from another. Turnbull may assist you in future cases if a representative of the RCMP is required."

"No _difference_? Between you and _Turnbull_? Are you _unhinged_?"

"I have been told so, yes. In fact, you have told me this often enough." He looks up, intending to deliver a pointed stare.

And realizes immediately his mistake.

Despite his strong voice, Ray's eyes are vulnerable. They are lined with worry. Tragedy, even. There are shards of anger there, too, glittering like veins of pyrite. Fraser feels the magnetic pull, and though he knows he must not let himself be snared he cannot wrench himself away.

Naively, he has delivered himself into the jaws of an unbaited trap, and now, short of severing a piece of himself, he cannot escape.

Ray reads people like printed words. And he acts.

"Fraser," he implores, sensing an opening. Sensing blood of a wounded, weak prey. He leans forward, one hand on the desk beside Fraser's elbow, the other on the back of Fraser's chair. "Tell me we can work this out. We're a good team. That's got to count for something. God, if it makes any difference at all, I'm _sorry_. I'm so sorry. I swear, I _swear_ I will not touch you again. _Please_."

The scent of Ray's presence is overpowering, and his words close in to stab and sting and bite. Fraser feels as if he is being tumbled around and around inside his own head until--

He explodes out of his chair and rounds the desk. But he still has not broken free from Ray's focused gaze. "You should have told me, Ray. Why didn't you _tell_ me?" His voice shakes like rattling leaves.

Ray frowns and his face narrows in challenge. "Tell you what?"

"That you'd never been with a man before."

Ray's eyes widen slightly, and Fraser catches the slightest imprint of guilt. The hand on the chairback clenches, and his bracelet slides a centimeter down, tightening. "I didn't-- I didn't think it mattered."

"My God, Ray. Of course it mattered."

Ray's arms come in to cross his chest, a shield and armor, battle-ready. "I knew what was happening. And it was good. You have to say it was good. So what's the big deal?"

"If I had known..." It might have been enough. If only he had had this one extra ember of information, he might have had the will to avoid this surround in which he is now helpless.

"Yeah? What? You would've brought _flowers_ or something? What about your first time?" Ray demands. "Did you do the full disclosure? Get the hearts and unicorns treatment?"

Fraser is forced to say nothing, and Ray interprets his silence correctly. He sniffs and his lips thin in triumph.

"You should have told me," he repeats, the protest weaker in repetition.

"Why?"

"Because--" Because you are unfettered and fierce and exquisitely vital, and I want you to tie me down, cage me, pin me. Keep me. Because you make me lose control, and that way lies disaster.

Ray makes a disparaging noise. "You want to know why I didn't tell you? I thought you might freak. And I was right, wasn't I? You're freaking out all over the place. You're freaking out to Atlanta, _Georgia_."

"You don't know anything." Fraser is furious. Terrified. He feels the knotted strands of the net digging into his flesh from all sides. "You have no idea how I used to-- What if I had hurt you?"

Ray gives him a patronizing glare. "I would've popped you in the head. But I didn't. Because you didn't. You _couldn't_ , and you and I both know that." His eyes go hooded. "This isn't about that," he declares suddenly. "The first, the second, or the twenty-ninth... it doesn't matter. This ain't about any of that."

Panic strangles him. With a spasm of self-preservation, he manages to drop his gaze to the ground. "I'm sorry. I simply can't work with you any longer."

"No."

The sharp, matter-of-fact missive strikes him like a lash. On soft predator feet, Ray approaches.

"You're not leaving. You hear me? So shut up."

He feels fingers on his neck, moving upward to his face. He is a moth trapped in cupped hands.

"You're going to tear up that transfer request, and we're going to work it out, all right?"

His chin is tilted up. Ray's eyes are deep and compelling, filled with the swirling, battering abyss of mystery. They make Fraser want to believe anything that they promise, no matter how strange. "I can't..."

"You can." Ray steps forward again. His heat brands Fraser's body, and Ray's next words are spoken harshly against Fraser's shivering lips: "I'm yours, Fraser," he promises. "All you have to do is take me."

Moaning, Fraser buckles and collapses in mute supplication.

***

Later, Fraser watches over his lover, yet wondering and disbelieving.

Under only the light of a single candle and the new moon, Ray's skin glows pale and bright in undulating rhythms as he draws breath in light slumber. Fraser drowns willingly in the heady incense of their combined bodies. He runs his fingers over Ray's skin, tracing abstract runes. He lowers his mouth to the hot, pulsing point, and he tastes, capturing the illusion within himself and thereby making it real.

Unable to help himself, he chants, "Ray. Ray. _Ray_." until Ray stirs and opens his weather-calmed eyes to whisper,

"Fraser. I'm not going anywhere."

His voice soft but at last confident, Fraser sighs in answer, "I know."

  
END.

 

 

 

[VOODOO](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x1pwogXuNg), by Paul Gross & David Keeley

 _Something in the way you talk_  
or maybe, baby, just the way you walk  
is shaking all the leaves out of the trees  
Something in the way you smile  
teeth and lips and hair run wild, yeah  
Surely this has brought me to my knees  
Oh Lord, I'm down -- I'm down upon my knees  
Yes, Oh Lord, I'm down -- I'm down upon my knees  
And I don't know which way to turn, which way to go  
What did you do to me?

 _(Chorus)_  
Did you do, Did you do a little seance  
Did you do a black cat romance  
Did you do, Did you do a little sun dance  
Did you do some voodoo, baby?  
(repeat)

_Hey, yeh, yeh, yeh  
I said hey, yeh, yeh, yeh_

_Feels like a winds a-blowin'_  
Looks like a hurricane's comin'  
and it's comin' from the center of your eyes  
These eyes of deepest blue  
These eyes that are so true  
You got the eyes to make me cry  
Oh Lord, I'm down -- I'm down upon my knees  
Yes, Oh Lord, I'm down -- I'm down upon my knees  
And all I know is I don't know what I know  
What did you do to me?

_(Chorus)_

_Hush now darlin', I don't plan to cry  
I said hush now baby, that ain't my style_

_Look at you, God knows I do_  
I put it down to a thing called voodoo  
I put it down to the curse of love  
I put it down to fate -- Hey!

_(Chorus)_

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hi all, this would be my first 'real' DS fic.  The first one I wrote was back in 2003, and it was [a fanfic of Speranza's fanfic](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/11081.html), ["A Moment of Insight"](http://trickster.org/speranza/Moment.html).  I wrote a lot of SGA and SG-1 back in the day, and I'm fresh from a lovely 2-yr tour of Bay City.  Due South kept me sane at a bad time in my life, and I'm amazed that I'd forgotten how freakin'  _good_  it is.  So here I am for round two, and maybe I'll write (more) fic this time.  Excited already to see some old and new faces. :)
> 
> A/N: This particular story came about b/c I was _obsessed_ with the "Voodoo" song and music video.  I admit that part of the charm (pun intended) of the song is that I wouldn't mind working a little voodoo on Paul Gross.  Man, when he says, "Oh _Lord_ , I'm down!" and when David Keeley echoes with his "I'm down upon my knees", esp. the second time when he does that little upswing that makes it sound strained...  That gets me Every Single Time.
> 
> A/N: A note on numbers and symbols.  The number 3 is a traditional number of power.  Three 3's is even better.  The number 9 also has a connotation of longevity and perfection.  The phallus and virgin rites pertain to the concepts of fertility and reproduction, probably what the world's first religions were based upon.  The state of virginity, or at least celibacy, is also commonly associated with spiritual power in magical lore worldwide.  Names, of course, have power unto themselves.  (I.E. Ray had some serious voodoo going when he bound Fraser to him -- and boy did he need every bit of it.)  And just to be clever, 1, 2, and 29 are prime numbers.  29=> 2+9=11 is another prime.  11=> 1+1=2 is another prime, in fact the only even prime number.  Any other symbology you find is me being unintentionally smart. ;)
> 
>  
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> * * *
> 
>   
> If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:    
>      [Not Quite, But Nearly](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/32485.html) (Starsky & Hutch), by kuonji    
>      [All The Right Reasons](http://community.livejournal.com/jackslashdaniel/448962.html) (Stargate  SG-1), by kuonji    
>      [Damaged Goods](http://crys.mrks.org/fic/damage.html) (Due South), by Crysothemis  
>      [Open Arms](http://www.mrks.org/~journey/fiction/openarms.html) (Due South), by Journey
> 
>  


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